


Glitch in the System: Warmth

by SystemGlitch



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, emotional navelgazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 07:16:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12206442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SystemGlitch/pseuds/SystemGlitch
Summary: By E.The morning after happens.





	Glitch in the System: Warmth

Sombra woke up the next morning in a slow, languorous dawning of consciousness. With it came her memories of the previous night, along with all the feelings and fears one might expect to accompany them. **  
**

As a blinding spike of adrenaline shot through her chest, she looked over to see the spider sleeping soundly beside her, fingers delicately curled beneath her chin as she slumbered. Her breathing was slow by normal standards, but in keeping with the pace of her heart, and Sombra watched her for what felt like a very long time in an attempt to convince herself that she was not, in fact, dreaming and had not, somehow, ruined it all.

The characteristic restlessness that colored her days took hold of her eventually, and she wiggled around a bit, trying to scooch closer without waking Widowmaker up. She’d gotten near enough that their foreheads were almost touching when the sniper opened her eyes with a soft flutter of lashes.

Sombra reached out a finger and touched the tip of her nose. “Boop.”

Widowmaker’s slow smile - a  _genuine_  smile, Sombra noted - lit up her sleep-heavy expression like a fire in the darkness. “ _Tu es mignonne_ ,” she said, grabbing Sombra’s outstretched hand in her own. “Are you okay?”

“Better than,  _mi cielita_.”

Widowmaker propped her head up on her hand, brushing some stray hairs from Sombra’s face. “I am glad to be home.”

The inflection in her voice filled Sombra with an unfamiliar heat that she masked by leaning forward and placing a single, soft kiss on Widowmaker’s chilled lips. The spider wound an arm around her waist, keeping her from shifting away, and Sombra felt a comfortable, growing familiarity in the way Widow’s cool skin pressed against the length of her body.

“Two weeks, no mission,” Sombra smirked, snaking an ankle around Widow’s calf to bring her closer. “What are you going to do?”

“I could always call Gabriel and ask for an objective,” she replied, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“He is going to give us such shit,” Sombra groaned, thinking about all the side-eyes and sighs that awaited them back at the Talon mansion.

“Gabriel can think what he pleases,” Widowmaker murmured into the curve of her throat. She felt the gentle pressure of teeth on the skin of her collarbone as the spider pressed against her side, and promptly stopped thinking about Gabriel, missions, and Talon in its entirety.

* * *

An hour later, they made their way out of bed, and descended into the chateau proper to review the details of the endeavor they’d signed up for. Sombra held her hand down the impressive staircase from the upstairs rooms to the primary kitchen and dining room, hungry, but not quite willing to let her go just yet.

“Would you like me to make you breakfast?” Widowmaker asked as they stood before the kitchen, its newness a strange sort of contrast to the rest of the estate. Someone had gone through considerable effort to make the oven and refrigerator blend in with the 17th century architecture, but there was just something about modern appliances that would never quite exist unnoticed in a place that predated electrical grids

“Sure,” Sombra said, running a hand over Toulouse’s back as he hopped on the table to greet them. Widow was perusing the cabinets, and Sombra lifted him into her arms before the spider noticed and complained about pawprints on the marble countertop

“What would you like?” she asked, turning back to the hacker, her expression indicating she already knew the answer.

“Cereal,” Sombra replied as Toulouse purred. “And a mimosa.”

Widowmaker rolled her eyes. “You have the palate of a five year old child. I’m making us omelets.”

“ _And_  a mimosa?”

Her incredulity shifted ever so slightly into a smile. “And a mimosa.”

Widowmaker, of course, made them hearty 3-egg omelets with swiss cheese and spinach, setting a small bowl of Sombra’s cereal on the table beside the plate without any additional comment.

“You spoil me,” the hacker said.

“I know how  _petulant_ you can be when you don’t get what you want.”

Sombra grinned and they sat down to their meal.

After breakfast they started on the outdoor terrace, raking away the soggy remnants of fall, sweeping old fallen twigs and leaves from the trellis over the side. It was rather lovely once you looked past the rust spots on the iron and the dead vines. The work wasn’t hard, but it took some time, and by the time the afternoon rolled around they were ready for a slight change of tasks.

“This place needs some serious work,” Sombra commented as she took in the piles of paint cans, drop cloths, and ladders littering the interior.

“It is several centuries old and has been uninhabited for quite some time,” Widowmaker replied. “It is going to be an endeavor.”

“That’s a word for it,” Sombra sighed, stretching her sore muscles from the morning, tapping at one of the boxes of stuff that was stacked in a corner by the bay window overlooking the lake. “So, where do we start?”

Widowmaker did not answer right away, taking in the sheer unfinished chaos of the chateau. “Here,” she said, picking up the top box from the pile and placing it on the counter. “We should take care of these first. They are taking up space.”

“What’s in ‘em?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, squinting and pulling the cardboard flaps back. Sombra walked over to join her, hopping up on the table as she pulled out album after album of old, mostly black and white photographs.

“Oof, memory lane,” she said, picking one up and flipping through the pages. “These have to be a century old. Do you even know who these people are?”

“They are familiar to me,” Widowmaker said, her voice soft as her eyes flicked over each picture one by one. “Relevant to the Guillard line, although I cannot recall their names. Or their familial importance.”

“Well unless you’re secretly also a vampire, you probably never knew them, anyway.” As she tugged out another album, a single loose photograph slipped free and floated to the floor.

Widowmaker bent to pick it up, flipping it over. “Oh,” was all she said, voice deadpan and detached.

“What?” Sombra asked, immediately recognizing the shift in the spider’s intonation.

“It is nothing,” she said, setting the picture on the table and continuing through the box.

Sombra picked it up. “Oh,” she echoed, frowning and uncertain what to say. She’d never met Gerard, but unless Amélie had been married to some other Overwatch agent in her life, then she’d stumbled across their wedding photo. “ _Lo siento, cielita_.”

“It means nothing to me,” she replied, head down as she sorted through the remaining photographs, the detached vehemence with which she moved indicating to Sombra that it did, in fact, mean something.  _What,_  she had no idea, and it didn’t look as though Widow had any intention of elaborating. Sombra tucked the picture covertly into her pocket and said nothing more on the matter.

They did not sort for long, Widowmaker’s silent perusal of the photographs becoming more and more erratic as she reached the bottom of the box.

“I am finished,” she said, packing them back into the musty cardboard.

“What do you want to do with them?” Sombra asked, frowning, the image of Amélie and Gerard feeling conspicuous against the fabric of her pyjamas.

“Burn them,” was Widow’s casual response.

“Burn them?” Sombra replied, uncertain. “But they’re part of your past.”

“They are not my family anymore,” she replied, stepping away from the table. “Burn them. I will be back soon.” Turning from Sombra and the stack of albums, she left the room.

* * *

She didn’t return, not after an hour had passed, not after the sun had begun to dip low in the sky. Sombra did as she had asked, tossing them page by page into the fireplace, wrinkling her nose against the acrid smell of burning paper.

As night descended on the chateau, Sombra gave up on the spider returning of her own volition and decided it was time to go look for her.

“Widow?” she called out as she crossed back out to the terrace, the sky dark now, but the sniper was nowhere to be seen. She checked the kitchen, made her way down to the wine cellar, and back out the the main entrance. The chateau was huge; if Widowmaker did not want to be found, even Sombra would have a difficult time locating her.

It took her the better part of an hour, but eventually she found Widowmaker where she’d retreated to the balcony outside their bedroom, standing stoically out beneath the stars.

“Hey,” Sombra said softly, walking to stand beside her. She didn’t acknowledge her immediately, so she settled in silently beside her, joining her in her quiet survey of the the vast holdings of the Guillard Estate stretching out beyond. The moon was high and the stars were out in force, illuminating the pair in their silent moment of reprieve.

“Sombra,” Widowmaker asked after what felt like an eternity of silence, eyes focused on some nondescript feature in the distance, “what does love feel like?”

Sombra raised one notched eyebrow and snorted out a laugh. “You’re asking  _me, araña_?”

“I’m asking you.”

Sombra shrugged, the skin of her arm brushing against the chilled blue of the sniper’s, bared in a plain black shirt not nearly covering enough for the temperature. “I’m not really an expert on love. I find more solace in circuits than people. You know,” she shrugged, leaning against the railing. “Historically speaking.”

“I remember feeling it. I just don’t remember how it felt.”

Sombra thought for a moment, back into her own past, and found it decidedly lacking in both wisdom and unbiased affection. She hadn’t spent much time on people; on  _really_  getting to know people aside from learning how to manipulate and use them. It hadn’t seemed like a problem to her before, but now she wondered if, perhaps, she might benefit from a companionship without any manipulative strings attached.

Something, she thought, like was undeniably blossoming here in the chateau.

Strangely enough, as her mind wandered in pursuit of something,  _anything_  she could offer in response, the one thing she kept returning to was Toulouse. Toulouse, the small, fragile creature she loved more than anything else in this world; the vibrant ball of joy who wanted nothing more than affection and safety. Perhaps it was because there was no manipulation to be had. Even if she’d wanted to, how did one manipulate a cat? Through tuna and catnip?

At any rate, she thought, it gave her an answer she could believe in.

“I think it’s warmth,  _araña_ ,” she replied, smiling as she glanced at the stoic woman beside her. She was still staring into the distance, features strained as she struggled to remember the feeling she’d once possessed in excess and now only recalled as a vague shadow.

“Well, then, there’s no hope for me, is there?” she replied, her words an attempt at a joke, but coming across much more despondent than she’d likely intended.

Swallowing, Sombra reached a hand out and took Widowmaker’s, twining her fingers gently between the sniper’s. “Not that. It’s not a warmth you generate, it’s a warmth you get from somewhere else. Like the glow off a fireplace, or the security of being held.” She squeezed her hand, smiling. “I know you can feel warmth, even if you can’t quite offer it in return.”

Widowmaker was silent for a long time, unmoving from her steadfast regard of the horizon. Sombra struggled against her natural inclination to move and do, stifling it for the sake of the moment.

“You are very warm,” Widowmaker said after a long time, so softly that her words were nearly carried away by the subtle breeze that whispered past them.

Gently, and as gingerly as she could manage, Sombra rested her head against the spider’s shoulder. A host of words paraded across her mind, but in the end she chose none of them, deciding instead to simply exist as the fire Widowmaker needed at that moment.

They stayed there, hand in hand, until the sun came up.


End file.
